Rest periods depend on your goal. Bodybuilders like short rest periods so that fatique accumulates and makes the muscle bigger. There is a also a cardio benefit from very short rest periods. For strength and power, which should be the main priority of us youthfully challenged folk, rests of several minutes between sets may be more appropriate.

_________________Stu Ward_________________Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~HippocratesStrength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley_________________Thanks TimD

I usually rest about a minute, but if I should have to rest several minutes the workout will last forever unless I drop some of the accessories exercises like curls, lateral and side raises, rotator cuff, flys etc.

Caught a bug that lasted 4 months and thats long after I stoped drinking beer! Have to start over again. Love it.

Your accessory lifts could be done with quick rest periods but for your big compound movements you should rest longer between sets.

_________________Stu Ward_________________Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~HippocratesStrength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley_________________Thanks TimD

I think it's sometimes worth it to sacrifice the number of exercises in order to take longer rests. I rarely time my rests, just lift the next set when I feel I'm ready. I agree with Stu about shorter rests on accessories--I just rarely remember to pay attention.

_________________Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

At my age I'm wondering if accessories are even necessary. Like curls, am I not getting that action (or enough) with lat pulls and rowing? Are flys necessary after doing bp, and side laterals after doing the shoulder press? Or, maybe at my young/tender/studly age I need to do accessories with short rest periods to just be more physically fit. I feel like I'm slacking if I dont do them. Thanks,

take them out for a few monthsSee if you enjoy and progress more on your main liftsMaybe the addtional energy / less time will envigorate you.Maybe the loss of certain accessory wrok will show up in lower press numbers, or slower progression.Maybe add soem back, but not all.

I guess my goal is what Stu said, strength and power. I work out upper, skip a day, then lower etc. and hit everything twice per week. What hurts me the most is not being able to do squats because of a bad back.

I guess my goal is what Stu said, strength and power. I work out upper, skip a day, then lower etc. and hit everything twice per week. What hurts me the most is not being able to do squats because of a bad back.

Strength & Power Rest Periods

As Stu stated, for strength and power training longer rest periods are necessary.

ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate)

ATP is the "gas" for strength, power and speed movements.

It is quickly burned up. I approximately 30 seconds on heavy strength sets, explosive power sets and sprint speed movement it is depleted.

Within 10 seconds, ATP the majority of ATP is burned up. Thus, you strenth, power and speed hit the wall after 10 seconds. You are toast in 30 seconds.

Restoration of ATP

50% of ATP is restored to the muscles in 30%.

However, it take over 3 minutes for ATP to be fully reloaded back into the muscle cells.

Your 60 Second Rest Periods

Around 70-80% of your ATP will be restored in 60 seconds.

Running On Out of Gas

Think of strength, power and speed movement like taking a trip. To get to your destination, you need to fill your tank up.

Let's say your tank takes 15 gallons. It is what you need to get to where you are going.

However, instead you put 12 gallons in your tank (80% of 15 gallons).

You're not going to make it to you destination.

That same thing applies with strength, power and speed training.

Your destination in the case is pushing the heaviest load, using the highest load in a powr movement and/or sprinting with the greatest speed.

That not going to happen if your haven't filled up.

Auxiliary Exercises

As you noted, these aren't necessary. The smallest muscle group and most overloaded in a lat pulldown is the biceps. That means they get enough work.

It is the same with most auxiliary exercise for the smaller muscle groups, again as you noted.

Squatting Solution

There are Squat Exericses that take the lower back out of the equation.

Kenny C. What about Creatine Phosphate? It's one of the driving fuels behind maximal force production and runs out under the first minute, and roughly needs 3-5 minutes at least to recover.And why no Lunges? Just a personal prefrence, or something deeper?

Also, if I do straight rowing and lat pull downs, then I don't really need to do curls. Right? With that way of thinking, if I do bench and shoulder press, I don't see why I would have to do tries on top of that either especially when doing bp and sp my tris get hammered, and sence I'm doing the sp, could I skip doing lateral raises also? I'm starting to get lazy just writing this. Ha! Am I missing something here? Also Stu, are you still hitting everything 3 times per week? I get much weaker doing 3, stronger with 2 and stronger yet with once it seems. Thanks,

Frank, Right now I'm going to the gym twice a week. I'll do a full body workout each time.

_________________Stu Ward_________________Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~HippocratesStrength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley_________________Thanks TimD

No, you're not. You have the concept. Some people (like body builders) may want to give even more work to certain muscles. Some people may want to give some work to "weak links" that they feel are limiting the compound movements, but most of us get a lot of good out of the compounds without doing more.

Another function of accessories is to give a different kind of stimulus to the compound movements. So you may do your primary benching on one day, but on another do light weights for very high reps, or do speed movements for power development.

I'm currently working a cycle that goes 10 or 11 days, with 4 workouts. I'm doing a squat-type movement and a DL-type movement once each heavy and once each light during that time. I'm doing upper-body movement fairly heavy twice in that time. That's what I think works best for me.

_________________Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

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